Chapter 1

"Remember, Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." ~ The Shawshank Redemption; Stephen King

Dust settling in the horizon whispered of once heavily overgrown forests. But that old world was gone now, replaced with one that was abandoned like a young child, relearning everything it had ever known. With technology destroyed and most of humanity with it, the population turned once more to superstition and common sense. Automatic weapons, suddenly rarer than gold, were replaced with old, reliable six-shooters.

In this world a man is never quite the legend he is made out to be.

Belts draped on either side of his hips, the gunslinger gazed towards the sunrise. He saw it in ways few men were able. He saw the magic in it, beyond the light, beyond the colors. His blue eyes glowed a faint pink as the red sky reflected off of them.

David had a long way to go before he reached his destination, but he had to know if the rumors were true, if the building still stood.

The only thing in his way was thousands of miles, the Forbidden City, and anyone he came across along the path. This new world knew nothing of kindness or altruism. It knew only survival.

He started walking again, the sun hot on the back of his neck. He'd had a hat once, but it had long ago been shot off. At twenty-four, David already wore the face of a tired man. Five years the world had been like this. Fire years of relearning how to survive in a world that was unfamiliar in the most difficult way.

If he was going to make this trip, he would need a horse. Gasoline, not only rare but outlawed, was not an option, and animals were always more dependable than a machine in the end. An animal could move with you, could act on instinct and protect you.

Or bite you on the ass.

And that was how things were now-either one way or the other, no in between. Everything was complicated and nothing made sense anymore.

Walking into the barn, his hands moved to the pistols on his hips. It was a casual move meant to be more of a reminder than a threat, and he knew he was being watched before the grimy voice even asked him what he wanted.

For a moment, David stood there in silence, eyes scanning the dark inner walls of the barn. When they stilled on the fat barn owner near the haystack in the back, his eyes narrowed a bit.

"I need a horse." When he spoke, David's voice was harsh, forced. He spent most of his time completely alone by choice these days, and talking was hardly necessary when you had no one to bloody interact with. But his voice, while strained, also spoke a silent warning of danger. He was not to be fucked with. The hands on his guns had learned to be fast over the last few years, and if the guns failed him, he had another weapon he could easily use simply risking being caught with it.

The barn keeper walked around the haystack towards him, rubbing his dirty hands on his shirt along the way, and belched before commenting in a thick Irish accent, "E'eryone wan's a 'orse these days. They're not cheap."

This wasn't news to David, he'd known that when walking through the barn doors. "Do you take gold?" he asked the disgusting man.

The barn owner started laughing in a way that made the disgusting rolls of his stomach shake and quiver, and David had to wonder how on earth he maintained such an obese figure in a world where you usually had to hunt for your food.

"Show me this gold o' yours an' we'll talk," he replied.

David carefully moved one hand away from his gun, his precise movements aimed to keep the barn owner from thinking he was a threat at this particular moment. Reaching into his pocket, he felt a sharp bite at the tip of his index finger before pulling the tiny pieces of jagged gold out and holding them in his palm for the barn keeper to see. The fat man immediately took a few steps away from him.

"Those are…"

"Gold," David insisted. And they were gold, but it wasn't what they were made of that had the other man so horrified and moving away from the gunslinger in front of him. It was the fact that this particular gold had come from the cavity fillings of a human being, and there was still blood stained around the sharper edges.

His own finger bled heavily now, as if to claim the small cut was worse off than David knew it was. He ignored it. Blood dried and cuts closed on their own more often than not.

For a moment they stared at each other, the barn keeper considering the fallout from dealing with such a man and the consequences from refusing to. His eyes constantly shifted for a quick glance at the guns on his belt before hurrying back to those piercing blue eyes that demanded his attention. David was nearly about to leave, thinking the man would not do business with him because of the gold's source, when he finally spoke.

"Which 'orse do you want?" He reached out, holding his own hand beneath David's, waiting for the gunslinger to turn his and give up the gold. Which he did.

"That one will do," he commented, pointing towards a pinto near the back. The horse was more white than black with rare splotches of what had the appearance of ink every so often on its coat. Had he been taking a shorter trip, David might have chosen the other horse a few stalls down, but the sun was brutal on a black coat, and he was not going to make whatever horse carried him that far suffer more than it had to.

His days of torturing animals were long over. There was no room for bullies in this new world.

"He's yours," the barn keeper told David. "Saddle's on the wall behind him." He was now busy counting his gold, no longer paying attention to the gunslinger.

David walked over to the horse, reaching a hand up to calm him when he stared at him through wide, fear-filled eyes. In a quiet, soothing voice-a drastic difference to the harshness he'd used when speaking to another human being-he whispered, "Aequus."

Instantly, the animal calmed and stared at him through trusting eyes. There was a connection between man and animal which was rarely understood by third parties, and David's mouth curved at the corners ever so gently almost as if to smile. He leaned forward, resting his forehead against the side of the horses head, whispering the word again and again until he realized he was being watch.

Opening his eyes, he turned to look at the barn keeper. The fat man pointed towards his arm. "Lift your sleeve," he demanded.

The gunslinger stood there and looked at him casually. "Why?" David asked him calmly, making no move to do any such thing.

"You're no' what you appear to be, are ya?" he demanded. And that was the moment where David knew he couldn't let the other man live. It was too risky, and judging by his attitude so far it wouldn't really be all that big of a loss to the world.

He drew and fired before the barn keeper realized there was a hole straight through his forehead. In fact, he had just enough time to glance up before he fell backwards, bleeding all over the hay. David glanced at his horse, who remained calm.

Holstering the weapon, he glanced down to make sure the man was dead before moving away from him. "You'll get used to that bleedin' sound," he assured the horse with dry sarcasm. The animal blinked indifferently. "Now, what are we going to name you?" David asked, opening the stall door to walk around and get the saddle. While most men knew better than to move behind a horse, David knew this animal trusted him now. He had an advantage most men didn't.

He had the horse saddled and ready within fifteen minutes. David was used to an English saddle, but this Western-styled one would do the trick for now. When he climbed onto the animal's back he didn't even need to indicate that it was time to move-the animal sensed it and started trotting towards the sunrise.

This was just the beginning of a very long day.

Hermione woke up covered in sweat, a chill moving across her body before she remembered where she was. Memories of dark times, times before the world had known about magic, rang through her head like aftershocks, and the young witch had to remind herself that the world she dreamt of no longer existed.

But she missed it every day.

Dressing quickly in a sweater and a pair of jeans, she tucked her wand against her side, the handle firmly placed between her belt and jeans so that the length of it could be hidden beneath her sweater. She had learned decades ago to keep it there rather than up her sleeve. Sleeves were the first place they looked, and magic was forbidden, against the law.

She sighed, walking over to glance out the window. The Forbidden City loomed in the distance, a dark splotch against an otherwise brilliant sky. It had been London before the Day of Fire, but the Forbidden City hardly resembled the city of London she'd loved as a girl.

There it sat, a cold reminder that things could never go back.

Hermione flinched slightly at the warm hand that rested on her shoulder. "Nightmares again?" he asked her.

She hesitated before finally turning to face Oliver with a weak smile on her face. "I didn't mean to wake you…" she started apologetically.

"It's fine," he assured her, leaning forward to kiss her forehead gently.

A smile crossed her features as she looked at him gratefully. She really hadn't meant to wake him. Looking at him now, it was difficult to believe that this man standing in front of her had once been a Quidditch team captain. While Hermione had always thought him fit from afar it had taken a nuclear war and Ron's violent death to make anything of the girlish crush.

He was her life now.

Hermione had lost most of her friends and family that day, and then there had been Oliver, the smoke clearing as he made his way towards her. 'Harry's gone,' he'd told her. 'Harry and He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named both are gone.'

'Are they dead?' Hermione had asked him, and he'd shook his head.

'Not dead, just gone.'

That had been the beginning of the end. Their world changed entirely that day, and as humanity learned of magic they also learned to hate it. They were in hiding now, forced to practice magic in secret if at all, and for a witch who had once been as dedicated as Hermione this was the most difficult change of all.

She had hope that Harry was still out there somewhere, but the awful logic in that was that Voldemort was too, connected as they were.

"It almost looks beautiful," she commented casually, turning back around to look out at the skyline of the fallen city. Oliver stepped forward, arms around her waist, and pulled her back to rest against him.

"Almost," he agreed sadly.